Mr. Tines wrote:Can't a guy just summarise a tl;dr wall of text to confirm what was being said without getting snarked at?

You started the snark, with a summary like that sounding all negative when FF4E's opinion was positive.

System Administrator"NGE is like a perfectly improvised jazz piece. It builds on a standard and then plays off it from there, and its developments may occasionally recall what it's done before as a way of keeping the whole concatenated." -- Eva Yojimbo"To me watching anime is not just for killing time or entertainment, it is a life style, and a healthy one too." -- symbv"That sounds like the kind of science that makes absolutely 0 sense when you stop and think about it... I LOVE IT." -- Rosenakahara

I did that though BC Baron, and I have to say I think Tines' brief summation does capture the gist of it. If the viewers are caught off guard by allowing previous work to filter through the new series then it very much IS the fault of the filmmakers for not making the differences in portrayal more explicit. Doubly so when the films feel like they intentionally hang on that missing characterization in exactly the sort of way fanfics often take their audience's knowledge of the series for granted to allow them to just skip over the usual need to establish characters before doing things with them.

Rest In Peace ~ 1978 - 2017"I'd consider myself a realist, alright? but in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist. It means I'm bad at parties." - Rust Cohle"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin"The internet: It's like a training camp for never amounting to anything." - Oglaf"I think internet message boards and the like are dangerous." - Anno

@ FreakyFilmFan4ever : that's true that many characters from the Rebuild are more or less different from their NGE counterpart, Shikinami, Poka Poka Rei and Shinji being the most changed, but subtle differences appears with the secondary characters too :

- Gendo seems slightly less of a bastard(he accepted to go to the dinner party and the infamous smirk when the Dummy System was mauling EVA-03 was removed, portraying him more like an extremely pragmatic man than a pure asshole like in NGE),

- Ritsuko had a better relationship with Rei than in NGE(probably due to the fact that the Rebuild presented Rei more as a surrogate daughter for Gendo than a surrogate Yui),

- Misato seems to be the one who changed the less.. except that when you look deeper you notices that her "captain Ahab" tendencies are more pronounced than in NGE, illustrated with her last pre-time skip conversation with Shinji when she admit that she don't really care about mankind's protection and is in NERV mainly to get closer to her father(and Ritsuko revealed previously that it's also to quench her desire for vengeance against the Angels), a change that resulted to be a potential plot point later when Shinji applied Misato's philosophy against Zeruel(although we can't say for sure that he would had acted differently had Misato not told him about her true reasons to join NERV)

The trick with Q is that people change with time, and 14 years is a long time to change, especially if said 14 years consisted on surviving and fighting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland to try to save what's left of mankind and the world. And many of the characters already present trait have worsened :

- Gendo became so pragmatic that now he see absolutely everything equally : tools to use to further his plan. Just look how Rei Q and her predecessors are treated compared to Poka Rei, or his interaction with Shinji : in 1.0 he talked a little to him to convince him to pilot, in Q he appeared, said what he wanted Shinji to do, left and didn't talked to him once, and I'm not even talking about the possibility that the various revelations that drove Shinji insane(beginning with Toji's shirt) were orchestrated by Gendo to make Shinji pull out the spears no matter what happens.

- Misato's Ahab tendencies have worsened to the point that she don't see any problem with using the Wunder to fly and destroy the NS, even though they never tested the flight mode before, Sumire said that she almost don't have any experience in maneuvering the Wunder anti-grav system, that according to Ritsuko a viable escape route was possible, and that the entire bridge(except Koji, but he seems to be a fatalist) protested about her plan. Hell the main Engine wasn't even connected yet, and Asuka had to open an hole in the "womb" on urgency to shove the igniter in and start the thing, and I remember that said Main Engine is now a sort of godly abomination trying to turn to core everything around it and which has allegedly brought once the end of the world! Her professional and almost cold side she showed only when the pilots were doing something stupid(Shinji charging Shamshel) is now her default character.

- Asuka is different in that she was a different person than Soryu in 2.0, much stabler and livable, able to accept her limitations and eventually rely on others... and Q embittered her to the point that even Soryu from the end of EoE looked sweeter! Of course she still have some of her development from 2.0 that grew, illustrated by her excellent teamwork with Mari(Mari herself ready to share the action now)

I think that what tick many people off is the fact that we saw them changed, but not changing : was it a precise event that transformed Misato into a full-blown Ahab or made Gedno completely discard his last shreds of humanity, or did these changes came gradually? Did Asuka's bitterness came from when she discovered the "curse of EVA", before that when she saw just how far Shinji had gone to save Rei and did nothing for her, or maybe it's the constant fights and struggles that eroded her optimism little by little?

Of course I know that it was planned that way by Anno to increase Shinji's confusion and shock, and thus ours, after we saw Asuka screaming to Shinji for help and being saved by him, I'm sure that most of us imagined that when they would finally meet face to face she would maybe scolds him for intervening that late, grudgingly thank him for saving her, or maybe continue the role of Misato and Ritsuko's info-dumping while being a little less harsh... but certainly not throw a megaton punch at his face, look down at him with a face of contempt/disgust/anger, give a throwaway line about a curse and tell him that they don't care about what happened to Rei!

And since any further exploration of the WILLE members changes(evolution) of their characters got interrupted by Mark.09's fist going through the Wunder's hull and didn't resumed later(we only see Misato and co for some seconds left or right, and Mari and Asuka were too busy trying to prevent 4I, and also screaming like a berserk to Shinji for the latter), we are still stuck with our first impression of their character, namely "WTF?!"

I hope that FINAL will delve a little more into the WILLE members psyche, some private chat between Misato and Ritsuko like when they were in the bar or in Misato's car, some chat between Asuka and anyone else that Shinji, or anyone while outside of battle, maybe some chat between the ex-NERV Bridge Bunnies and the new WILLE Bridge Bunnies, or Sakura... to see just what kind of person they are or became when they are not interacting with Shinji, "BM-03", war criminal and "Impact Boy".

Because if Anno don't do this, it will be almost impossible(at least for me) to get attached to them and their cause to defend what's left of mankind, and that risks to be the same thing for Shinji, who will surely be thrown at the middle of everything because plot, and then the complains about how underdeveloped the post-time skip characters are will hold some truth...

Last edited by ElMariachi on Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:50 am, edited 3 times in total.

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

BC Baron wrote:As far as I'm concerned, the people who took the time to sit through 3.33, making a sincere attempt to truly understand it, are ONLY ones justified in disliking the movie as much as I did.

Hear hear. A few years ago I taught a history of film class & when it comes to things like art & film everyone is entitled to their own opinion. No one is wrong in loving 3.33 nor are they wrong for hating 3.33. As I told the students time & time again, the main point of discussion is to listen to other people with vastly different opinions from your own in hopes of either gaining new insight or strengthening your own thoughts.

Personally I love 3.33 & it is by a large margin my favorite of the Rebuilds to date. Anno & Co took huge risks with the third entry in their franchise when they could have played it safe & most likely reap large rewards. The easiest thing they could have done was follow the path that 2.22 set them on, retell the old almost verbatim with a little swag thrown on top. They didn't & took risks that clearly were going to alienate a lot of people. As a struggling personal filmmaker - when I can afford it dammit - I applaud the balls to take that jump & make that risk. Even more so I applaud them for making a film that touched me emotionally & worked as a film. But it worked as a film for me. It clearly didn't work for others hence why a thread "Did you dislike Q" is going on for almost 30 pages now. I don't agree with a lot of the negative outlooks on 3.33 present here but I still want to listen to opinions other than my own & I appreciate the opportunity for discussion.

BUT: Not watching the Rebuild films & continually partaking in the discussion & primarily through negative, snarky, blase one-liners by the way, does not follow the core purpose of why EvaGeeks exists which is to encourage discussion amongst truly passionate fans of a work of art. To take it back to that film classroom for a second, it's akin to that one older kid in the back of the room who didn't do their homework, didn't read the literature or take the time our of their day to watch the films in question but loves the sound of their voice so much anyways that they have no problem disrupting the discussion with their oh-so-clever repartee.

Remember:Play Nicely.The purpose of the EvaGeeks Forum is to provide Evangelion fans with a pleasant, mature, and productive atmosphere for the discussion of the show and related topics.

Anywho, I'm curious to read more people's thoughts on the path the new Eva movies have taken & how they feel about it after the fact & what their experience with the movie was like while watching it so please keep em coming! I'm not interested in what they think they might or might not feel if they actually watched it. It's too much of a blasé, shut up, whatever, fuck you attitude for me to honestly appreciate.

That's my 2 cents for what it's worth. Now back to Eva 3.33 talk! Please. :)

Warren Peace wrote:The characters are all recognizably the same ones they've always been, with maybe the exception of Misato (and, er, Maya I guess). To say the new series is only using "likenesses" is to get into "organic webshooters mean he isn't Spider-Man!" type silliness. I agree with FF4E that the original series trips people up with preconceived notions, but by and large Rebuild concerns itself with the same things as NGE. The latest entry even ends with a scene that is vintage Eva to drive that point home.

Well, there are a few more differences than that. I don't want to get into too much details, but I will state that Soryu was a bit more of an extrovert while Shikinami more of an introvert. NGE Rei II wasn't interested in Shinji's relationship with his father, while 2.22 Rei II was all about trying to get the two to reconcile. NGE Gendo probably wouldn't have agreed to dine with his son (granted he wasn't invited in NGE, but still...), but surprisingly enough 2.22 Gendo did agree to dinner.

I agree with ElMariachi that there are even more differences in the secondary characters as well. By EoE we learn that NGE's Misato really did have it in her head to "lay and hand on the boy," (being Shinji). In Q we learn that NME's Misato was either more or less joking about all that, or had understandably completely lost interest in anything like due to Shinji almost ending the world through N3I and reminding her of Second Impact. Ritsuko doesn't seem to share in everyone's "Mother Complex" in NME because it hasn't established that her mother is the brain for The Magi. There are other things, but seeing as how much of the supporting cast (like Toji and Kensuke) aren't featured as often in NME as they were in NGE, this really isn't a change inasmuch as it is reduction of any kind of character development. But I still think that a majority of them go unnoticed in most of the first two new movies because they are not that obvious as well as the possibility of viewer projection.

I just noticed that I didn't even answered to the topic subject : did I dislike Q?

I don't know. Yes and No.

On one hand I absolutely loved the new additions and changes compared to the previous movies and NGE, things we never saw before and could only imagine are now taking form :

- what would happen to the Evangelions after all the Angels were(seemingly) defeated? An arms race leading to always more advanced EVAs and insane angelic-based technology(360° view with holographic display of information on the entry plug, longer battery time, anti-ATF rounds, portable recharge pods, bionics arms, Nemesis Series, ATF used as propulsion, fucking AAA Wunder!).

- for once the good guys are not two guys trying to uncover the truth and get killed before being able to do anything(namely Kaji and later Misato), but a big and powerful organization with the means and knowledge to damage SEELE.

- the war against SEELE came to the open instead of hidden conspiracies

- the good guys actually know what's happening, earing Asuka mentioning SEELE, ADAM or the "Ayanami series" is really odd when you think about how clueless about what's happening she was in NGE!

- ever wondered what a non-controlled Impact would do? Q answers it!

- Gendo managed to get rid of SEELE and now is completely free to make his plans come to fruition!

And now that SEELE is dead, anything can happen!

I also loved how much more serious and militaristic WILLE is, no more "amateurish" NERV! Now Misato and the rest of the armed forces too can participate on the fight and destroy the bad guys, the Evangelion aren't the center of mankind's defense, but a cog in a big machinery entirely working for the protection of humanity, for real this time!We also see Asuka as the elite badass pilot she was always depicted to be, and with Mari we see at last a true stable teamwork between EVA pilots!

To paraphrase a famous meme : "Shit just got real"!

But on the other hand, I hate these plots were a character get "freezed" in time and wakes up years later completely clueless about what happened, with all of his friends and acquaintance having moved on and learned new things about the plot while we're stuck with the ignorant guy that feels now apart from his group of friends... and 3.0 had this exact scenario, but pushed to an almost extreme point : Shinji was already the most "left behind" character before the Time Skip : he's the one who know the less about what's happening(even Kensuke who wasn't a part of NERV knew more that him, hell at the beginning Shinji didn't even knew what he was fighting for until Misato showed him Lilith!), the least experienced pilot with almost no training(especially compared to highly trained people like Asuka, Mari and Rei), due to his lack of training is the one who lose the most easily his calm(not that he wasn't exactly stable to begin with...) and gets constantly manipulated by his father or used as a guinea pig for their experiments!(Dummy System)

And the time skip only widened even more that gap, to the point that he's almost literally from another world, the pre-N3I world, still a high-school kid while everyone else is an adult, still don't have a clue about what's happening or what happened while everyone else got even more knowledgeable than they ever were in all of the original series, which led to Shinji being even more manipulated with almost apocalyptic results, still at the same rookie level of piloting while Asuka and Mari became even better at piloting, everyone at WILLE survived and fought together during those past 14 years, forming incredibly strong bonds of comradeship and trust, something Shinji will probably never be able to aspire to although that's the thing he craved above all... and let's not even talk about the fact he was judged guilty of something we don't have a clue about and the fact that he lost what made him the most useful to the others(piloting the EVA) while having become something too dangerous to let him start a new life elsewhere(he's an Impact Trigger, and maybe not even human anymore), which in the end not only makes him useless like he feared so much, but even worst : he became a burden they can't get rid of and made it useful!An subtle image that I found very powerful and perfectly illustrating that fact is during Shinji's briefing in the interrogation room of the Wunder, when the ship began to shake because of mark.09 attack :

SPOILER: Show

You can see Misato, Ristuko and Sakura's reflection on the glass panel, and they're all at a telephone, their back turned to Shinji, communicating with their respective team... they are all communicating with the exterior, being informed of what's happening, giving and taking orders about what to do, in short they all have a role, a place in the group... and meanwhile Shinji just stands here, completely unable to be informed on what's happening and unable to help, like a satellite orbiting around a planet, physically here but not really a part of the group, only managing to distract and irritate everyone with his questions about who is attacking, and Ristuko made clear that he bother them by making the glass panel opaque.

I know, I know, that was part of Anno's plan to make us feel Shinji's distress, confusion and shock, and I admit that it was masterfully done, I never felt so much empathy for Shinji, and that's something which seems to be shared by many other people.It's just that I don't like these kinds of plots, I'm not interested on seeing characters changed, but in seeing them change, how did they came from point A(2.0) to point B(3.0). There is also the fact that a loooooot of things happened during those past 14 years and that we are still denied knowledge about it, even though these informations are vital for us to understand the characters, how they became who they are in 3.0 and the events that led to this insane blood-red world.

And of course there is the insane amount of breaking Shinji suffered during the film, canceling any progresses he made during the previous ones and making him regress to a state even worse than at the beginning of the story, similar to the useless vegetable he was reduced to in EoE...

To conclude, I would say that so far I have a love/hate relationship with this movie, and my final decision will greatly depend on what will be present in FINAL, and maybe some side material explaining what the hell happened during that time skip, I want to know how WILLE was born and why the hell the FoIs are copies of EVA-01 damn'it!

Last edited by ElMariachi on Fri Jun 21, 2013 3:02 am, edited 3 times in total.

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

ElMariachi wrote:But on the other hand, I hate these plots were a character get "freezed" in time and wakes up years later completely clueless about what happened, with all of his friends and acquaintance having moved on and learned new things about the plot while we're stuck with the ignorant guy that feels now apart from his group of friends... and 3.0 had this exact scenario, put pushed to an almost extreme point

That time skip plot device ranks right up there with amnesia as something that's arguably a very interesting senario in which to place a character, but also being abused to the point of exhaustion in every soap opera and other poorly-written pulpy crap. If a writer for a daytime soap can't figure out how to change up the story, then he pulls out the "character forgot everything" stunt in his script which allows him to date the blonde instead of the brunette in season 15 of any long-running cheaply produced romance show. Other abused tropes chosen only for being mildly interesting without needing complex characters are "The villain isn't REALLY dead!" and "There was never true love between us, Jane. Only lust."

But Evangelion has interesting enough character to make something like that work beyond that which we've seen abused in other shows and narratives, so I'm willing to give it a shot. It also helps that set up the ground work for the emotional states of the characters in Q with 1.11 and 2.22. Like you said, it really depends on what the rest of the Eva series does with this plot device that has been gimmicked by other, lesser made shows. There obviously seems to be more thought put into it even beyond the already complex emotional state of the characters, what with Nerv being in shambles, Wille's rise to power, Asuka's eye-patch glowing blue glyphs, and and Central Dogma being a giant mess that's sealed off from the rest of the world. So it's quite possible that the time skip in Eva is a bit more clever than others give it credit for. It's just hard to redefine a narrative archetype back to a state of quality when it's more noticeably been used as a crutch by so many other incompetent writers in time's past.

And, likewise, it's hard to see what the New Eva Movies will do with it when the narrative voice in Q, with few exceptions, is super-limited to what is being experienced and expressed by Shinji.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:So it's quite possible that the time skip in Eva is a bit more clever than others give it credit for. It's just hard to redefine a narrative archetype back to a state of quality when it's more noticeably been used as a crutch by so many other incompetent writers in time's past.

And, likewise, it's hard to see what the New Eva Movies will do with it when the narrative voice in Q, with few exceptions, is super-limited to what is being experienced and expressed by Shinji.

Good call, I agree. The success of the time skip (and really the whole of 3.33) will depend on the last movie.

I felt like at least the time skip in 3.33 accomplished something other than shaking things up just to advance the plot. As fans we sometimes get overprotective of the fictional universe, and Anno was able to play with that feeling by letting it all go to shit, then dangling that carrot of "maybe it can be fixed!" in front of us. I think it would have been a much weaker movie if we had an unbroken continuity from 2.22.

I'm coming up empty as far as other shows that use the timeskip quite like Q does. It isn't completely unprecedented or anything, but implying that such a bold move is stock/safe/by-the-numbers writing seems a bit much. I don't see how someone sits through this film and says "oh, old hat".

I'm not exactly against the use of time skips, if they are justified and don't skip too much important things, for example, a story were there is a preparation for a war that will begin in, say, 3 years, we will have the characters getting prepared, training... here I don't have any problems with a time skip, it spare us a lot of time seeing them getting ready and if something important happened, a little flash-back at the moment it's relevant and everything is alright.

What I don't like is when one of the characters is "out" of the time skip, stuck exactly as he was before while everyone else moved forward, especially when very important events happened during the time skip that changed everyone, made them create new bonds with other people while the guy who was out of time got relegated as a thing to the past.

And Q is exactly that : Shinji was "frozen" while a shitton of extremely important events happened that completely changed everyone else, made them much more knowledgeable and efficient against the bad guys, they all had to struggle and survive together, forming an unbreakable bond between them...And Shinji? He's at best "the brat", the only kid while everyone else is now an adult and don't have anything to make him do to help them(since he's a kid), as ignorant as 14 years before and easily manipulable... in short Shinji became completely useless to them.Worst, due to his "Imapct Trigger" status, they can't drop him in a base or settlement to let him start a new life, grow and help them later, they have to keep him close to them to protect him, while he attract a lot of unwanted attention, he's worst than useless, he's a burden!

But Anno used that time skip for drama so masterfully that I can't help it but to be impressed by this work, that incredibly ballsy change of story that could have ruined his franchise while he could have played it safe, it compels respect.That's why I'm conflicted and I will wait FINAL to form a definitive opinion about Q, because that film was obviously the prologue for FINALE.

But still, I must admit that my sister's face when Sakura presented herself as "Sakura Suzuhara", little sister of Toji was really priceless!

Avatar:THE HIGHEST OF ALL HIGHS WE AAAAAAAAAARE!!!Kensuke is a military otaku who, at one point, is shown creepily taking pictures of girls to sell. He would clearly fit right in as an animator at Studio Gainax. -- Compiling_AutumnEoTV is a therapist, EoE is a drill instructor. -- ChuckmanSeriously, that is the most fananked theory I've ever heard, more than Mari being Marty McFly travelling through time to keep her parents (Asushin) together. -- Jäeger

ElMariachi wrote:And Q is exactly that : Shinji was "frozen" while a shitton of extremely important events happened that completely changed everyone else, made them much more knowledgeable and efficient against the bad guys, they all had to struggle and survive together, forming an unbreakable bond between them...

That would have been fantastic if that's what actually was portrayed in 3.33. Unfortunately, since it's all from Shinji's perspective, we are left to infer the whole unbreakable bond thing. We're left to guess at what might have happened in the intervening time skip. We're clueless, and if you look at the most oft-asked thing in the 4.0 threads, it's for an explanation.

Furthermore, the time skip is cheapened by the Curse of Eva. Everyone aged 14 years, except for the ones that didn't... they act a little different, mostly angry. And realistically, what main characters drastically changed? I can think of three... Gendo with a more lined face and new eyewear, Fuyutsuki looks really worn now, and Asuka maybe. Misato looks a bit older and cooler, but really, it's just wardrobe changes - they look basically the same, the lack of visible ageing likely a product of the fact that hey, it's anime.

So I didn't really feel the timeskip. I was told there was a timeskip and a lot of stuff was blown up, but the pilots all look about the same, and most of the characters look about the same with maybe new haircuts or wardrobes or eyepatches, so it sort of undermines itself. Evangelion has always to me been character driven. That's where I expected the changes... the world? Blah, whatever. Change the characters. A missed opportunity, imo (4.0 pending).

I mean, the very fact that pretty much all the same people are all still around post-timeskip and don't look radically different... pretty much sucks. The ones missing are secondary characters: Kaji, Touji, etc. Sakura is a secondary character, who got a glance at best pre-timeskip. For fucks sake, there's even another Rei.

You wanna change things? REALLY change things. Imagine if Misato, Ritsuko, Asuka, et al weren't even in the movie. Here's the AAA Wunder piloted by people we don't know, defended by a pink Evangelion. Now there's a timeskip that really feels like a timeskip.

I didn't dislike the movie but somehow was expecting something different, I felt that there was much missing, too many holes, too many things left unanswered, still I liked that the story took a completely different turn from the original series and I really hope 4.0 gives more insight in what the hell happened in those 14 years and what is going to happen after all that happened from 3.0.

I feel that the direction that Anno took with 3.0 is completely insane.

First off, I love the premise and concept of 3.0. Time-skip, set in the "future", WILLE at war with NERV and post-Third Impact world. That said, I whole heartedly welcome this insane and shocking time-skip, although I feel that the majority of the film could have been a bit better in terms of pacing. There are many scenes in the film that seem to lack scene transitions. I know 1.0 and 2.0 lacked a little bit in scene to scene transitioning, but I personally feel 3.0's lacking in thereof is drastic. Two notable examples include; the capture of Shinji from Wunder to him waking up in that room with the "unfamiliar ceiling" and Shinji and Kaworu conversing in Shinji's room to them putting on their plug-suits, ready to pilot Unit 13. Don't get me wrong, I strongly think these "from one scene to another" breaks give 3.0 a certain style. The film feels "cool" (for lack of a better word) with this type of fast pacing, but that aside, I feel that that 3.0 could have been a bit better if it had included more and actual scene structure. Why? Because this crazy and new universe that Evangelion 3.0 has introduced to the series is one that piques interest and wants to be explored. Regardless, yes 3.0 is very fast paced, but I feel that the pacing itself was executed in a very well manner.

So as to what actually happens in the film with plot and characters...I love Misato's new "character", I miss Kaworu's NGE villainy/shady vibe, I felt let down by Mari, Rei, and Asuka's debut in 3.0, everyone else was fine. Now talking about the characters, I honestly felt everyone acted in a very realistic manner. I bring this up because I know of the reactions that some people had with WILLE's cold treatment towards Shinji and Kaworu's antic with the DSS Choker. In my personal opinion, I felt the behavior expressed by the characters in 3.0 was realistic and I did not have a real problem with it. Two major disappointments I had with 3.0 relates to Kaworu and the fight scenes in the film. Kaworu..never...interacted with anyone except his good ol' pal Shinji. No one...seemed to actually acknowledge Kaworu's existence in 3.0. I would have loved to see Kaworu have some backbone during the fight down in dogma and actually interact and "fight" Asuka and Mari. Bringing up this certain fight and the one that came after, during Near 4th Impact, I feel both were kinda disappointing. Dogma's fight consisted of Asuka jumping around in the dark trying to stab Unit 13 which just stood there, letting it's little drones block all of Asuka's attacks and then we had Mari doing nothing but taunt Rei. Then came the Mark 9 vs Unit 2 aboard Wunder fight scene. Annoying strong red hue covering everything and lasers flying everywhere. Not to mention the Mark 9 goes full black demon mode and Unit 2 transforms into a panther thing. I'm not saying I disliked these weird and sudden transformations, but they felt extremely odd.

Evangelion 3.0 is extremely futuristic. I liked this change. Not at first, but over time I got used to it and now welcome it. There are MANY details, both big and small which show how far technology had advanced in the Evaverse during those 14 years. These details only contribute to the overall feeling that I get from 3.0, which is how drastically different it is from NGE, 1.0, and 2.0. Lastly, I do have some gripes with the animation in 3.0. There are lots of instances where 3.0 looks stunning, but there are also many instances where the animation looks "flimsy" Knowing Rebuild has a considerable budget, I really felt let down when I noticed there were many scenes which I feel could have been animated better. The music itself in 3.0 is absolutely amazing. Shiro Sagisu composed some godly compositions for 3.0 (I listened to the entire OST right after I finished watching the 3.0 camrip, I simply could not believe how good the music was in 3.0. The OST is nothing like I would have imagined to hear in Evangelion. Crazy stuff).

I conclusion, I think 3.0 is a great film. Different does not mean bad. Yes, I had some disappointments with the film, but these disappointments were more like expectations that I personally had for the 3rd Rebuild film which didn't happen. Anno still managed to create a brilliant piece of work for the 3rd entry in the Rebuild series, regardless if it was radically different than from what everyone expected.

And I'm really hyped for 4.0/Final, because with all the new things 3.0 brought to the table, anything could go down and that's pretty damn exciting.

Several months after my first viewing of Q, I have but this to say as my final opinion. I fucking love this film.

I've gotta say, the film really grew on me. I went from having the opinion that it may have been complete shit to constantly agreeing with myself on how much of a masterwork it is. Everything was new, everything was interesting, and everything was exciting. Now that I've had a bucketload of time to get over the shock, I'm inclined to say that 3.33 is my favorite entry in NTE thus far. Honestly, I love it. I just can't wait for 4.0

Not one of mine complaints this time, but a comment I found somewhere under one of the reviews.

sometimes i get the feeling the whole point of these rebuilds is to just show how Shinji will always fail even though he tries hard to change himself and make things right. A show dedicated to display the ultimate failures of a character. Nice one !

Scary thought... What if that is true?

Last edited by Stillborn on Sat Jun 22, 2013 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

After watching it over and over again, I'm starting to not like it now. It just doesn't explain what I want to know, all these little tidbits and secrets you see in the background and notice don't do anything for me since it's still too vague to put everything together. What the Hell is that IPEA logo doing on Mk.4 A? What's with the box next to Rei's shack? What's going on with the Angel Sealing Glyphs? Speculation is fun and all, but I don't see a point in putting them there if you're not going to address them. I highly doubt FINAL is going to answer all (if any) of these little things you notice since it's gotta work on continuing where Q left off and ending the movie series, I'm worried that we're not even gonna get anything on the time skip other than what we already know. There's just too much mystery and not enough clues.

Do I dislike it? ... actually, no. If anything, I'd consider its story, animation and music the strongest I've ever seen from Evangelion. Unlike the first 2 where the pacing felt rushed since it's many of the episodes crammed into 2 films (with different twists which leads to this film), this one takes a different route and its pacing is better structured and it felt a bit epic at times. Sure the ending of this seemed to make you want more for that film... but that leads to the next film, and would make you ponder. (only my first viewing so far months ago. I plan to see my next viewing when Funi releases their Blu-ray release.)

What I do not like:

SPOILER: Show

Secondary characters. Not the main concern, which the story is mainly about Shinji and its main characters, but damn, are they not impressive. Misato. What became an awesome (hottie) girl now becomes... a bitch. ... somehow it was understandable considering what she witnessed during the 2nd impact 15 years before Eva 2.0's 3rd impact.Why did it had to be shorter than the first 2? Granted, the pacing is better, but somehow, I wanted some more things explained throughout.